The hyenas closed in, sensing a sure kill.
“For you, Sharrim!” Adora dropped her sword and sprinted forward.
“No!”
I ran after her.
She swiped the tangle of chains that had been used to hold the hyenas, looped one chain around her wrists, and leapt, swinging it out. The chain caught the female werehyena’s neck. The female twin stumbled back. Adora landed on the short wall of the bridge, her back to the eighty-foot drop.
A power word punched the werehyena. Her eyes rolled back in her head. Adora smiled at me and jumped over the edge, taking the female werehyena with her.
Oh God.
The chain tangle slid. I dropped Sarrat and grabbed it. The chain jerked, nearly ripping my arms out of the sockets. Below me Adora dangled over an eighty-foot drop, her right wrist still caught in the chain’s loop. The werehyena’s body lay broken below.
“Traitor!” an inhuman voice howled behind me
“Let me die!” Adora tried to rip the chain off her wrist. “Sharrim, let me serve in death. Please!”
Fire sliced my back. Someone had tried to slash through my spine. I molded the blood gushing from the cut, forming it into a narrow strip of blood armor, shielding my vertebrae.
If I dropped the chain, there would be no questions. I could tell Curran whatever I wanted. Derek wouldn’t talk about Adora, and neither would Julie. Curran wouldn’t leave me. I wouldn’t have to hide Adora, I wouldn’t have to be responsible for her, and I wouldn’t have to break her world and tell her I didn’t have the keys to heaven.
Drop her, the magic insisted. Drop her. It’s the smart thing to do. The right thing to do.
The pressure ground against me, as if my soul had split in two. One part wanted power, the other knew what was right, both of them wanted Curran, and I was torn in the middle.
Drop her and everything will be okay. It’s what she wants.
Drop her.
DROP HER.
. . .
No.
Something snapped inside me, like pieces sliding into place. I gripped that voice inside of me and choked it into silence. “Do not let go!” I barked. “That’s an order.”
“Let me go.” She was weeping. “I’ll go to heaven. I’ll serve you forever in the afterlife.”
“I’m not a god. There is no fucking afterlife heaven where you can serve me. My father made it up. Adora, don’t let go.”
A furry arm gripped the chain below mine and flexed. The enormous weight vanished. Curran pulled the chain up, hand over hand, his face all lion, his eyes burning.
Around us, bodies littered the bridge, the male werehyena’s head lying by his body, his neck a shredded stump where Curran’s teeth had torn flesh and cracked bone. Derek’s sides and legs were drenched in blood. Julie lay slumped in a heap, exhausted. Roman’s face was bloodless.
Curran pulled a weeping Adora onto the bridge and pulled the chain off her.
She covered her face with her hands. “I’m sorry, Sharrim. I’m so sorry.”
I saw it in his eyes. This was one straw too many.
“Get the kids into the car,” he said.
“I can . . .”
The expression on his face stopped me cold.
“Get into the car.”
I packed Adora into the Jeep. Curran picked up Julie and carried her in.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“I’m tired,” she whispered. “So tired.”
Roman picked himself up and got into the car. Derek limped his way to the Jeep. Curran held the front passenger door open for him. The werewolf crawled into the vehicle. Curran shut the door.
“Go home.”
“Curran . . .”
“Go home,” he repeated, his face iced over.
I started the engine, backed the Jeep up, and turned it around. In the rearview mirror the bridge behind me was empty.
“Is he coming back?” Julie whispered.
“Of course he’s coming back,” I told her. I had no doubt about it. Curran wouldn’t leave me, especially not without talking to me first. “He just needs to cool down.”
“I’m sorry,” Adora whispered.
“It’s okay,” I told Adora. “It’s okay. You didn’t do anything wrong. It’s not your fault.”
It was mine.
• • •
I TOOK EVERYONE home. That was all I could do.
The kids had been moving Adora to my old apartment when they were jumped. Derek wanted to fight, but Julie had made a double blood ward to keep him in. Making one took a wallop of power. Making two wiped her out, but her wards had held out against everything Roland’s people were able to throw at them. The werehyena sahanu had run their mouths. Julie was the intended target. They had tracked her to our neighborhood but saw too many of Mahon’s bears. I would have to thank him. So rather than go in, they left a scout and caught up with her, Adora, and Derek on the bridge.
I had taken Saiman back and ripped Adora away from my father. He retaliated by trying to take Julie away from me. There was no going back after this.
Erra wanted a full report. I told her Julie would explain. I didn’t feel like talking.
Derek’s injuries were minor. He bled a lot, but healed quickly. Mine weren’t much either. I’d called Nellie and promised her the sun and the sky if she came to patch everyone up. She did. She also issued Adora and me a sedative. I didn’t take mine.
Nellie left. I’d called in some cavalry and now I sat on the porch, waiting.